If there was one thing that I would approve to have been carried forward from a previous era, it would be the guillotine.

They must have been small deer. Twenty-two field dressed would be 2200 pounds.

During the beef crisis of the 70's, I know of a person that was rumored to have shot over 100 deer. The deer have never come back to the previous population.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
They must have been small deer.

Likely Roe Deer, which are only 30-70 pounds each. They're all over Europe, and are the most common species of deer in Germany.


We're used to Whitetails here in the US, which are 5X bigger (or more) than Roe.

But Germany also does has Red Deer (aka stags), which are bigger even than Whitetails, running 300-500 pounds.

Yes, the European deer are smaller than ours.

And yes, I noticed too that wild game seems to be common on the menus of your local Gasthaus, or at least it was in the 90’s when I was there: Hirsch (venison), Wildschwein (boar) and Fasan (pheasant) could be featured among other things.

Here it seems like wild game is a rarity reserved for very high end restaurants.

Roe deer is still a lot of weight if they field dresses at 35 pounds and/or they had a large van.

I caught two poachers on my land in the early 80's. I had found the gut pile in the field and they returned not knowing that I was there. I watched them with binoculars as they looked around the gut pile. I figured they lost a knife or something.

I made a mistake and should have sneaked up on them while they were outside the vehicle in the open field. Instead, I waited until they came back down the road. I asked for an ID and he said it is on the door. They were in a 4-wheel drive surveyors truck that was high off the ground and I couldn't see inside if they were armed. They didn't know I was armed but what if you get in a shoot out? Even if you were able to arrest them, what is stopping them from coming back and causing more damage since I don't live out there. So I let them go and I assume they were the ones that continued to hunt on the land at night. It was about two years later that I saw the same vehicle turn in to a house on Watson Road.

The paper said it was Fallow deer (dama dama), there is quite a population in that specific area.
He may have had close to a metric ton of meat in his vehicle.

This is reportedly an image from last November at the main suspect's house, which might indicate what he was typically preying on.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
They must have been small deer.

But Germany also does has Red Deer (aka stags), which are bigger even than Whitetails, running 300-500 pounds.

So does UK. Amazing sight, for sure.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Yes, the European deer are smaller than ours.

And yes, I noticed too that wild game seems to be common on the menus of your local Gasthaus, or at least it was in the 90’s when I was there: Hirsch (venison), Wildschwein (boar) and Fasan (pheasant) could be featured among other things.

Here it seems like wild game is a rarity reserved for very high end restaurants.

Yup, venison is a supermarket meat here in our part of UK. I've never ever had to buy it, if I'd wanted to, as so many fellow gun club members shoot deer either for themselves or as professional game controllers. We have around 150,000 too many in the deer population, thanks to the Bambisti like the appalling Chris Packham, who jumped on the Green bandwagon to bolster his flagging career as a formerly highly-regarded naturalist. AND he can't pwonounce the letter 'r'.

https://www.stripes.com/theate...r-Kusel-5282661.html

One suspect in fatal shooting of German police near Baumholder released, cleared of murder charges

BY ALEXANDER RIEDEL
STARS AND STRIPES
MARCH 9, 2022

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — One of a pair of suspects in the fatal shooting of two German police officers near the U.S. Army installation at Baumholder in January was released from jail this week and is no longer accused of pulling the trigger.

The district court of Kaiserslautern rescinded the arrest warrant against a 32-year-old identified only as Florian V., lead prosecutor Udo Gherig announced Wednesday.

Investigators concluded that Florian V.’s suspected accomplice, 38-year-old Andreas Johannes Schmitt, was the lone gunman, Gherig wrote in a March 1 statement. Schmitt is charged with murder and commercial poaching.

Two officers, a 29-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman, were shot dead on the morning of Jan. 31 during a traffic stop near Kusel, a town in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. The shooting triggered a major manhunt, and police special forces arrested both men the same evening.

Florian V. remains accused of commercial hunting, poaching and attempted evasion of criminal prosecution. His lawyers had appealed his ongoing detention and prosecutors no longer deem him a flight risk.

Prosecutors said testimony Florian V. gave cleared him of murder charges. He reportedly told investigators that during the shooting, he sought cover in a roadside ditch. Schmitt continues to exercise his right to remain silent, prosecutors said.

Police initially believed that a single shooter could not have used two weapons to fire five shots, including three from a shotgun that had to be unfolded and reloaded after each shot.

The female officer was killed by a round from the shotgun. Her colleague fired at least 14 shots in self-defense after being hit by a shotgun round but was killed by bullets subsequently fired from a hunting rifle, according to the Kaiserslautern prosecutor’s office.

Rheinland-Pfalz police investigations into the shooting included autopsies of the slain officers as well as forensic investigations of the weapons and bullet impact sites. Only Schmitt’s DNA was found on the weapons used at the crime scene, according to Gherig.

Schmitt alone had the shooting experience needed to supply so much rapid firepower, Gherig wrote in the statement.

When Schmitt and Florian V. were arrested, police found two long guns, including a double-barreled shotgun and a Winchester Bergara .308-caliber hunting rifle in their possession.

On Schmitt’s property in Spiesen-Elversberg, police seized five handguns, 10 long guns, a crossbow and one repeating rifle. Schmitt does not have a valid license for those weapons, according to authorities.

An unidentified third person who is the legal owner of the weapons found on Schmitt’s property remains a subject of the investigation, according to a statement by the Kaiserslautern public prosecutor’s office.

Schmitt remains in jail pending the conclusion of investigations. He is slated to stand trial first in Saarbruecken on April 25 on fraud and other finance-related charges, which are unrelated to the killing of the police officers.

The trial date may change, pending the investigation into the shooting death of the two police officers.

Schmitt is also accused of commercial poaching operations. Florian V. admitted he was helping with the hunt on the night of the crime, prosecutors said.

Police found 22 illegally killed animals in Schmitt’s transport truck and more in a storage facility owned by Schmitt, according to prosecutors.

The killer of the two officers got life with a finding of particularly severe guilt today, practically ruling out the usual possibility of parole after 15 years (eligibility will eventually be determined by another court way down the road). His accomplice was convicted of poaching, but given time served in light of his full confession and aiding the investigation.

Thank you for the update. Such things are, I believe, of legitimate interest to some of us.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Even without the recovered ID, my first question was how the murderers thought they would get away with something like that. In the US any such stop/contact would involve the police notifying their dispatch with vehicle information, to include license plate. Any idea if that’s the norm in Germany?

My brother-in-law married the daughter of a fairly high-ranking officer in the Hessian State Police. We had a number of interesting conversations over the years. Among other things, the officers were told, and trained, to not do certain things. And they did NOT accept bad attitudes or actions from those who had been stopped, either on foot patrol or vehicles.

On one occasion, I worked with the local police force on an investigation of a farmer who had assaulted a couple of American dependent children.

The officer I was working with told me, when I asked him what we/I should do if the dirt bag resisted arrest, "Shoot him! Repeatedly!"

Works for me.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
It has been a while since I was in Europe. But when I was there on Uncle Sugars dime, we were told absolutely do not mess with the German cops.
Dont be surprised if the people responsible for this get ventilated.

One can only hope...